There won't be a mea culpa big enough for those trying to normalize Trump if you're wrong. This means you, Jon Stewart. By Hal M. Brown

 

This RawStory article, "Trump's plan to jam through appointments enters new 'extreme' phase: says expert" prompted me to react.

Excerpt:

The plan already being discussed among a group of House Republicans involves Trump dismissing the Senate “against its will,” which would allow him to stack the government with whomever he chooses in the resulting "recess," wrote Akhil Reed Amar, a constitutional law professor at Yale University. 

“This is flagrantly unlawful,” he told readers in an op-ed published Friday in The Atlantic. Even more than that, Amar said the threat from House Republicans should be exposed as “an autocratic move that is not just unlawful but contemptuous of constitutionalism.”

The scheme, according to the Yale professor, would see House Republicans manufacture an “illusory” disagreement to spark the president’s adjournment power.

“First, the House of Representatives would pass a resolution calling for a recess,” he wrote. “The Senate would then (in all likelihood) refuse to pass the resolution. Trump would then declare the houses to be in ‘disagreement’ and adjourn both houses for as long as he likes.”

The "recess-appointments spree" would ensue from there, Amar said.

He noted the other Washington maneuver gaining traction that Trump could pull to get his nominations through the finish line – through a Senate vote to recess itself after the incoming president’s inauguration, “allowing him to unilaterally make a series of ‘recess’ appointments.”

“That plan may formally be legal, but it is plainly improper,” Amar wrote.

My reaction:

What would keep Trump from pressing the fast forward button on becoming an American Hitler? If he is thwarted in his nominations by Congress his next step could be to dissolve the body permanently.

Whether Congress would stop meeting if ordered to do so would remain to be seen. If they did meet and voted against him he could ignore their votes.

This would certainly lead to mass protests and there's a good chance it would cause him to declare a national emergency and invoke martial law and order the armed forces to break up demonstrations. People  likely would die if his orders are followed. The Kent State Massacre would look like a picnic. 

The big if is whether the military would go along with this. If they decided not to this could lead to a quiet, that is a non-compliant coup, or an active coup. 

If it was a active coup, instead of tanks protecting the White House and attacking Congress they could be surrounding the White House with cannons pointing at it.

 

If all this came to pass, the generals would install a temporary president. I don't see Trump as being literally arrested. Trump, protected by the Supreme Court for these acts, could not be prosecuted but this would be still be a coup. 

Despite being protected by the Secret Service faced with an overwhelming force military would not be engage in battle. They would have no choice but to stand by if the White House was surrounded and soldiers demanded Trump be surrended or they would enter and remove him. 

Thus Trump, if he didn't leave voluntarily, would be physically removed by a cadre of soldiers who would allow his Secret Service detail to accompany him. They'd all be flown to Mar-a-Lago in a military transport, not Air Force One. The Supreme Court would probably call an emergency meeting and declare that this was unconstitutional, which it would be, but they'd have no power.

New presidential elections would be called to be held in six to nine months. Trump would be allowed to run but the elections would be supervised by the military and be fair. If the people who believed Trump's promises that he'd make their lives better decided they wanted a ruthless dictatorship the generals would have to accede and allow Trump to become president again. 

I would hope that by this time enough gullible Trump voters would have realized they'd been betrayed and misled, and that this was not what they voted for. Thus iff he did end up running he'd lose. The Republicans would be given a second chace to free themselves from Trump and MAGA and nominate someone else. This would also give the Democrats time to have an open convention and hopefully nominate a better candidate than Kamala Harris.

Of course Trump is making sure he is portrayed as Mister President-to-be Nice Guy Normal as evidenced by his meeting with President Macron to celebrate the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral today and having a a 60 Minutes interview with Kristen Welker tomorrow.

Maybe all of this glory will mute Trump's dictatorial desires to exact revenge against his enemies and spitefully ram though the 2025 Agenda to turn our federal goverment into a heartless freedom-chipping machine where people are like dead trees and would be reduced to wood chips and disposed of. 

I think Jon Stewart is naive and misguided when he rips into the media for scaring people about Trump (read article).

Excerpt:

Jon Stewart decried the media’s panicked coverage of President-elect Donald Trump’s upcoming second term, saying that it’s not helpful to get the public “s***ting our pants this early.”

Before interviewing Vermont senator Bernie Sanders on his latest Weekly Showpodcast episode, the Comedy Central comedian, 62, opened the hour acknowledging that America is currently in a “transitional period where we are not sure about whether the ground we are standing on is solid.”

“Although the news media seems convinced that we are the Roadrunner and the Coyote and the Coyote has run over the cliff, and we just looked down and realized there’s nothing under our feet and now we are plunging to our deaths,” Stewart quipped in reference to the famous Looney Tunes characters. “Because the news media is always very circumspect.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen when Donald Trump takes over,” he said, adding that while “we should be prepared” for all outcomes, “I don’t know how helpful it is to get us s***ting our pants this much, this early.”

Using a metaphor to describe his feelings about the Democrats losing the election, he said: “In the joint custody agreement that we now have in America, the kids are going to live with Dad for the summer and you just have to f***in’ eat it.”

Jon, I hope you think about this. There is good cause for freedom loving Americans to be (no asterisks) shitting in their pants. Stewart's summer with Dad won't be merely three months of Hell. It will last at least four years.

There is a very good chance Stewart and everyone else trying to normalize Trump are dead wrong. Maybe in the next year or two they will rue the day they helped people let their guard down and helped pave the way for the end of the American experiment in democracy. 

Dishonorable mention for trying to normalize Trump: Joe Scarborough and MikeBrzezinski for going to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring, and kudos to Rachel Maddow for calling them out on this.

Trump, not merely through his words, but through his nominees, has shown us what he wants to do. There will be no mea culpa big enough to come from people not taking this seriously.

Previous list of blogs here.

Primary Hal Brown's Blog website is halbrown.org (if you are reading this anywhere else any additions or corrections will be at this address)